Sunday, October 11, 2009
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MECHELE!!
Monday is Mechele's birthday! Good news is that she is getting out of solitare TUESDAY! We are thankful but it is ironic that they chose the day AFTER her birthday. Thanks to all of you who have posted on this blog and who have contacted me personally. We know we have a battle ahead of us, but one that we also know we will win! For anyone who wants to wish her Happy Birthday on this blog, feel free to post! I am printing and sending her all the comments that each of you have sent and continue to send. It does so much for her state of mind to know that she is thought of not just by friends and families, but perfect strangers who have looked into her situation and relalize what an injustice has been done!! My thanks, as always to all of you!
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15 comments:
i just finished watching 48 hrs. and to my disbelief Mechele was convicted. What the heck is going on in Alaska. I cannot fathom, for the life of me how that happened.The funny thing is, I don't even know her. My heart goes out to the Lippick family, it truly does but I feel they have the wrong person. Happy Birthday Mechelle and I wish you the best!!!
I continue to try to leave a comment but to no avail..... I truly beleive that Mechele is not only innocent but wrongly portrayed. I wish her and her family the best.
I just watched a show on Mechele and the way it was portrayed was very one sided, in my opinion. Scott Hilke had a failed lie detector test and to hear the detective just dismiss it AND not check his phone or flight records is incredulous. If this were a different case pulled from today's headlines and there was a failed lie detector, everyone would be quick to judge that something isn't right.
John Carlin? He lied at his own trial stating he didn't know where the gun was but then after his conviction he suddenly remembers that he put it in a dumpster? He lied to protect himself thinking it would do him some good. I also believe Scott also lied to protect himself.
I've lived in Alaska and I know it to have a ratio of women to men of at least 10:1. Men in Alaska are desperate to get a woman and I do believe that a beautiful girl like Mechele was their 'fantasy' that they truly believed in.
It bothers me to know that people think of strippers as 'bad' or 'evil' people. Many girls do this to fund their college educations. No one looks at 'The Girls Next Door' (Playboy girls) as EVIL. What about the men who go? Are they innocent? Well, no, they go there to 'fantasize' that they could possess, a woman who was apparently out of their league. It's interesting that on one hand they are portrayed as ditzy girls and on the other evil.
It sounds like Kent was disturbed. When I hear the excerpts from the letter it sounds as if wanted to blame Mechele for the rejection he suffered when he realized she did not love him. It also sounds like he had previous issues with stealing that led him to 'start' over in Alaska. To hear he was frantic to find Mechele, well, that makes me really wonder what his own mental state was like. Why isn't there anything about him and his past? When he changed the life insurance close to the end of his life, it makes me wonder if it wasn't an attempt to have the last word.
If there were I would assume that we would learn that he was an unbalanced man who preferred a 'fantasy' life over a real one. Even as he tells his parents who to suspect, he is saying that he wants Mechele to know that he loved her and he wanted to make all of her dreams come true. My guess is that what he really meant was that he wanted to make all of his dreams come true. I see it as a very spiteful way to end his letter.
I don't believe that Mechele is guilty. I do think Hilke knows more than he's ever admitted to and I also believe that Carlin did the murder to in an effort to seek acceptance or approval of either Hilke or Mechele.
I study psychopaths and sociopaths and their mask slips too often and then the cracks appear. I don't see this here. I didn't hear anyone in Mechele's past or present who described her any differently EXCEPT the three men who wanted to be with her. Usually in a case where there is slippage, there are accounts that don't add up. The mask is easy to see when you know what to look for and I think in this case everyone (prosecution) was looking backward and labeling her 'sociopathic' rather than saying these things at the time she was friends with these men.
I hope she gets a retrial and a fair chance of her life. I do hope justice finds its way to you.
Lucky
I live in Pittsburgh, PA and up until a few months ago I never heard about this case. I have seen the 48hrs special a few times and the more I see it the more I feel Mechelle is innocent. First off the letter that Kent Lippick wrote to his family seems like a letter from a scorned man. I can't believe that it held up in a court of law. Secondly Scott Hilke should have been further investigated. I feel the police and prosecution got tunnel vision and focused mainly on Mechelle.
They used her past as a smear campaign. Being a stripper at a young age doesn't translate to murder. Every article I have read about this trial is headlined with "ex-stripper". Given the negative image society has toward strippers automatically makes people feel she is guilty including the jurors in the case. The prosecution used this along with a former friends diary to taint the jury. This convictions is a total stain on the justice system in the State of Alaska! I feel for the Lippick family, I lost my father 2 years ago and I know how bad that hurts but in my heart I feel Mechelle is innocent.
God Bless, Kevin Klein
Happy Birthday, Mechele!
Also, I'd like to say that yesterday afternoon 48 Hours ran the story again. Between 48 Hours, Dateline and Snapped, I've watched this case no less than 5 or so times, and the one question I keep coming back to is this: Did anyone consider the possibility that Kent committed suicide by hiring someone to kill him?
I mean, the way his letter arrived at his parents' home was extremely coincidental, not to mention the overall tone of it was eerie, as was the change to the life insurance policy.
I don't know, but it seems to me as if he was planning to set her up or something.
Thanks for all the great posts!! Just to answer a couple of questions. Yes, it has been considered that perhaps Kent staged his own death. The letter to his parents was extremely suspicious. For those who aren't familiar with our case, let me explain our family's position. Before the trial, we chose not to use the media to exploit this case and cause further pain for Kent's family. We truly believed that justice would be served and played out in court rather than be tried through the media. Boy were we naive! We did not want to slander a dead man. His family had been through enough. Unfortunately this did not work in our favor. We had great attorneys who truly believed in the system. Well, even the prosecutor was surprised at the verdict. Mechele was found guilty based on her previous occupation. Let me be clear, in the next trial there will be nothing held back for anyone's sake. I am deeply sorry for Kent's family. But I do not believe that my daughter should become a victim as well. There is no closure if justice is not truly served.
I'm less sympathetic to the Leppink family. Kent embezzled money for his own family, which is why he was in Alaska. His family banished him, until his father came to visit him shortly before he died. Before the trial, one of Kent's brothers said publicly that Kent was a liar and a thief that couldn't be trusted. There was some serious disfunction going on between Kent and his parents, but after his death and for the drama of the trial his family, especially his mother, carried on about their loss, the loss of the son they'd banished for stealing from the family business! I think that is because if the insurance company had any reason to believe Kent was killed either by his own doing or while involved in something illegal, they would have refused to pay Kent's parents the one million dollars.
Kent burned through his money and was broke right before fishing season. He needed money again and we know he was capable of stealing, so who knows what he was involved in?
At the time of his killing, Mechele told investigators that Kent was actually gay (she said he liked men) and that she'd just been a cover for him-they were friends and she pretended to be engaged to him to hide his sexual identity from his family and others, which makes sense. An openly gay fisherman in Alaska wouldn't have been looked on too kindly back then (probably not now either), and his being gay would explain some of the bad blood between him and his family, especially his father.
Kent convinced his family that he'd started a new life in Alaska, that he was financially successful and was going to marry a beautiful young woman, so his father came to see him and check things out. But what happened? Mechele didn't show because she'd found out some bad things her friend Kent had done and been up to and left the state to go see her real boyfriend, who both Kent and John Carlin knew about and had met.
So when Kent's dad arrived, the lovely young fiance was a now show, which given the bad blood between Kent and his father, and with Kent wanting to impress his father, would have made him wig out and search for her. Also, remember he'd told his family he was financial success when in fact he was broke and desperate to find money to take his boat out for fishing season.
Given that Kent was broke and he'd already shown he capable of illegal activities, stalking, stealing private files of Mechele and Scots (and who knows who else's because it isn't likely they were the first given his mental problems), I've wondered if that letter to his parents wasn't part of his trying to set up Mechele to hurt HER. She tried to cancel that policy (which was ignored by the prosecution and the jury), but after making her think he wanted to cancel it too and his supposedly having given the agent the same message, he ends up with a still active policy that left the one million to his parents. Since it was still active, if it had been Mechele killed, who was listed as the beneficiary?
I have other suspicions as well, but the above is enough to show how many illogical conclusions were drawn by the prosecution and investigators, and that there were other glaringly obvious avenues to pursue but they chose not to.
I do not think John Carlin did it, but I do think he was protecting someone else, and perhaps it was someone who deserved protection because they'd just accidentally been caught up in the mess Kent was creating.
I'm less sympathetic to the Leppink family. Kent embezzled money from his own family, which is why he was in Alaska. His family banished him. Before the trial, one of Kent's brothers said publicly that Kent was a liar, a con, and a thief that couldn't be trusted. There was some serious dysfunction going on between Kent and his parents, but for the drama of the trial, his family, especially his mother, carried on about how this evil woman took their precious son-the same son they'd had nothing to do with for quite some time because they'd banished him, and who had been much older than the supposedly evil women she was accusing!
I think they made such a concerted effort because if the insurance company had any reason to believe Kent was killed either by his own doing or while involved in something illegal, they would have refused to pay Kent's parents the one million dollars. The case was suddenly reopened and people put on trial which could have and should have opened up a real can of worms for the Leppinks. Notice the brother who was openly critical of Kent fell silent, saying nothing more in Mechele's defense, nothing positive about Kent, and nothing about their family being victims.
Kent burned through the what he'd stolen from his family and was broke right before fishing season. He needed money again and we know he was capable of stealing, so who knows what he was involved in to get more money?
At the time of his killing, Mechele told investigators that Kent was actually gay and that she'd just been a cover for him-they were friends and she pretended to be engaged to him to hide his sexual identity from his family and others, which makes sense. An openly gay fisherman in Alaska wouldn't have been looked on too kindly back then (probably not now either), and his being gay would explain some of the bad blood between him and his family, especially his father.
Kent was trying to convince his family that he'd started a new life in Alaska, that he was financially successful and was going to marry a beautiful young woman, so his father came to see him and check things out. But what happened? Mechele didn't show because she'd found out some bad things her friend Kent had done and that he'd been up to, so she left the state to go see her real boyfriend, who both Kent and John Carlin knew about and had met (which directly conflicted with the prosecution's description of their relationships).
When Kent's dad arrived, the fiance was a no show, which given the bad blood between Kent and his father, and with Kent wanting to impress his father, would have made Kent wig out and search frantically for her. He would have been mortified because his father, already with a negative opinion of his son, would have been alerted to the fact that Kent wasn't telling the entire truth about his life in Alaska.
Also, remember that Kent told his family he was a financial success when in fact he was broke and desperate to find money to take his boat out for fishing season.
Given that Kent was broke and he'd already shown he was capable of illegal activities, plus stalking Mechele all the way to California and stealing private files of Mechele and Scott's (and who knows who else's because it isn't likely they were the first given his mental problems), I've wondered if that letter to his parents wasn't part of his trying to set up Mechele to hurt HER. It isn't a stretch to suspect that he intended to hurt Mechele but set it up so that people would think she was killed in self-defense. And perhaps he had someone else with him who didn't know what he was up to, but he had along to use in some way, and when Mechele wasn't there either, just like she hadn't been there when Kent's father visited, he lost his cool and exposed what he was up to or what he was really like to whoever was with him and ended up getting shot himself during a meltdown and aggressive behavior? The other person could have panicked and just run, which is what the scene where they found Kent's body looked like, not like one where someone killed him in a planned fashion and then took the time to dispose of his body more carefully.
Mechele tried to cancel that policy (which was ignored by the prosecution and the jury), but after making her think he wanted to cancel it too and his supposedly having given the agent the same message, Kent ends up with a still active policy that left the one million to his parents, and it just happened to be in his pocket, and he'd sent that letter to his parents. Since the policy was still active, if it had been Mechele killed, who was listed as her beneficiary?
I have other suspicions as well, but the above is enough to show how many illogical conclusions were drawn by the prosecution and investigators, while there were other glaringly obvious avenues to pursue but they chose not to.
I do not think John Carlin did it, but I do think he was protecting someone else, and perhaps it was someone who deserved protection because they'd just accidentally been caught up in the mess Kent was creating.
Happy Birthday to Mechele! I'm sorry you are spending it where you are.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MECHELE!!
May the upcoming year bring you health, happiness and FREEDOM!
Laura, Sue & Olivia
Happy Birthday Mechele! I am late with my birthday note to you so I'm glad I have this opportunity to let you know I am ideed thinking of you. It is so nice to see how many friends you have even "stranger-friends." I will write soon. <3
Hello, my name is mark johnson and I have seen Mechele's segment on< 48 hours hard evidence> twice,I have read several of the comments and I can understand the conclusions drawn from these indivduals., My question is if I may ask is did Mechele take a polygrath and what were the results? and please accept my sincere best wishes to Her and her Family.
Hi Mark! Thank you for your post and your good wishes for us! To my knowledge, Mechele was not asked to take a polygraph. If I am not mistaken, our attys offered to do one, but by a disinterested, third party and the prosecution refused. I am not sure about this and will ask Colin so that we are presenting our bloggers with accurate information. I do know that the results of a polygraph cannot be used in court. Thanks,again.
This is a late post on this topic so I do not know if anyone will see it, but I want to add something to one thing Klein0231 wrote, which is that the prosecution used the diary of Mechele's former friend to taint the jury.
It is true they used the diary to taint the jury, but the prosecution misrepresented to the jury the woman's relationship with Mechele. They were not really friends, but more like acquaintances who worked together and Mechele had been to her home only a few times. Others who knew them then said that the woman didn't like Mechele and was jealous of her.
More importantly, during testimony, the diary ended up contradicting the woman's testimony about Mechele and the movie. It turned out she was perjuring herself and the defense had her own diary to show it. Sadly, though, despite that, the press continues to refer to the movie and to that witness as though they matter as proof of anything!
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